For some hours after leaving it, I felt as I had never before done, when starting on any expedition. The tear-blurred eyes of my wife kept painting themselves before me. It must be remembered how long we had been separated from each other, and how recently, for the second time, we had again commenced married life. Even the gay jests of Arnold, and the coarser, but equally well-meant consolation of Brighton Bill, failed to restore my usually blithe spirits until the noon was long past.
Movement and action, however, possess a large degree of comfort in them.
By this time I had recovered my equanimity, and on the following day I was as gay as either of them. Nothing of note beyond the common everyday occurrences of travel of this class occurred while we were on our road, until we reached Egan Cañon. Here we met some of Connor's men, who had been stationed there to protect the Overland stages. Thence we passed through Camp Floyd to Stockton, where we found the Colonel's command encamped near a small lake. Both he and Major Gallagher welcomed me in the most cordial manner. On presenting my two companions, whose names were well known to both of them, this cordiality was greatly increased.
"I knew we had secured one good man when we got you to join us," said Connor. "But I little thought you would bring us two more, as good as yourself."
He then informed us that we might take things as easily as we chose for the next few days, after which, he quietly said, he trusted to give us plenty of work. Arnold replied:
"The more of it, Colonel, the better."
The hearty readiness with which this answer was made, seemed to please him very much. When, shortly after, he left us, I heard him say to Gallagher:
"We are in luck, Major!"
Nor can I be charged with undue vanity, in supposing his congratulatory sentence referred to myself and my two companions.
We necessarily resigned ourselves to the comfort or discomfort, as man chooses to consider it, of doing nothing for the following week, or somewhat less. One morning, however, we were startled by a visit from the notorious Port Rockwell, Bill Hickman, Lot Smith, and others of the so-called Mormon Danites. Why they came was, of course, none of our business. Yet, we had heard too much of them to fail in examining them closely, and I am free to own I was not too deeply impressed by the sanctity of their appearance. The greater portion of them were, however, pretty muscular examples of saintship, and exhibited, what I always supposed they would, considerable oiliness as a veneer to their even less pure and peaceable proclivities. While we were inspecting them, I could not refrain from asking Arnold what he thought of them. He delayed a minute or two in making his reply, and Brighton Bill improved the occasion by propounding to me in a solemn, and exceedingly audible voice, the following query: